For a moment Hari was still, then his fingers pressured a return message. Love. Trust. Taren?
Yes. Taught. Little.
Our. Secret. Not.
He signed another word and Sam wondered what it meant—six taps and a scrape of his nail over her little finger.
She thought furiously as to its meaning. Six fingers. A nail. What? Monster? Starlord?
Yes.
Starlord. Not. Know?
Hope. Not.
Further signing was interrupted by the arrival of a platter of food supplements, delivered by one of the humodroids.
Sam glanced at the pills and a jug of blue milky drink. She sniffed it. “I hate Nutrina.”
“It’s all you can expect here, kitten. You get used to it,” Hari said. “Best have some, you need nourishment.”
Sam took a sip and nearly puked. It was as feegling awful as she remembered. Harimal poured himself a glass and visibly braced himself to drink the gunk.
Felinus enjoyed the pleasure of food, as all of life’s diversions. She remembered that first night with John at the Saturn Hilton, when they had discussed culinary delights and how they despised Nutrina and other synthetic supplements.
She quashed the memory. When there was time to grieve, she would. If she survived.
Sam drank. It was better than nothing and she was ravenous. How long had it been since she’d eaten? She would much rather hurl the cup against the wall, but that would probably get Hari into trouble.
Some minutes later, the door slid open. Sam swallowed nervously as a grey-skinned creature powered into the room on a motorized chair. She stared in dread fascination
This was a starlord?
She’d read about them in the history books, but nothing prepared her for the real thing. The creature was butt-ugly, a cross between a lizard, a cat and a man. But ironically, its glowing amber eyes were beautiful. Angelic eyes in the face of a demon.
Instinctively, Sam retreated a step as she saw Andy walking beside the starlord. Facing him, facing her fear, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, ready to confront Sinclair. She’d tear him limb from limb. Just one more step closer, you bastard!
By the look of him someone had gotten to him first. His cheeks were bruised, and a long scratch stretched across his neck from ear to ear. She hadn’t remembered doing that to him. But good if she had.
His gaze was distant and she smelled the acidic tang of drugs. He’d experimented with stimulants and had probably grown addicted to them and progressed to something stronger—if his vacant look was any indication.
“Hand them the caps,” the starlord ordered.
Andy bent down to the undercarriage of the chair and drew out two gold mesh caps. He walked forward.
Hari interspersed himself shielding Sam.
“Stand back, felinus. My servant knows his boundaries. The woman belongs to me.”
Andy set the caps on the end of the cot and backed away.
“Affix the dream caps to your heads,” the starlord ordered. “I will monitor your dreams and share. Please me and I will grant you a privilege. Do not cooperate and you know what awaits you. Begin. And you!” he glanced at Andy. “Leave the room.”
“Master, I…” He flicked a look at Sam.
The starlord ran his talon over the control panel on the chair. Andy groaned, his eyes wide. “Leave, or it’s fourth level pain.”
Sinclair shuddered and, almost bent double, limped from the room.
The starlord laughed. “I think I should kill him soon.”
Sam swallowed hard, her heart pounding in her ears. Her legs gave way and she toppled back on the bed.
Hari faced the starlord, fists clenched. “You goddamn monster! Can’t you see she’s ill? She’s had mutatis and her cat is dead. Do you understand what you’re asking of her?”
The starlord’s talon waved over the pain switch. “Then divert her, felinus.”
“But—”
The talon flicked the lever.
Hari groaned. “No. She has mated. I cannot. No!”
“Level three, felinus.”
Sam saw Hari’s body convulse, but his gaze rested on the starlord. Murder sparked in the felinus’ eyes and that brought a taunting smile to the starlord.
“Such defiance. Level five, kitty-cat.”
“No! I’ll do it, stop hurting him!” Sam dragged herself from the bed and grasped the cap. “I’m stronger than I look, Hari. C’mon, let’s get this over with.” She handed him the other cap, studying her own. Made of gold mesh, it was embedded with crystals and extruding from each crystal were thin silver optic fibers.
“On the bed,” the starlord demanded.
Sam eyed the cot. “You call this a bed?”
“You want a proper one, then earn it!”
Gevrin-iik Sam thought.
The starlord laughed, almost human except for the snake-like hissing. “Gevrin-iik. You think I am a bastard? Technically, all starlords are, human-mine. We recognize no father. But…how clever of you! To divert me so. Divert me in another way, and I may not punish your cat-boy.”
Casting the creature her most vicious look, Sam tugged on the cap and settled on the cot, her gaze never leaving the monster. It shook its head, making the fiber optics writhe. For a moment Sam thought the starlord resembled a Gorgon, the snake-haired woman of Greek mythology. The creature was ugly enough to turn anyone to stone.
A low thrum tingled over her skin, emanating from her cap.
“Hari,” she whispered, holding out her hand.
“Samantha, you do not have—”
“Yes, we do.” She signaled. Trust. Me.
Hari edged onto the cot, avoiding contact with her. “Sam…”
She touched his wrist. “Am I so repulsive?”
“Honey-kitten, I have wanted to love you, but not this way, sweetheart. Not without John.”
Sam swallowed her tears. John was dead and the hollow in her gut gnawed. Stars, how it hurt! A dull ache throbbed at the base of her neck.
“I cannot ease that pain, Sam,” Hari said.
“But you can hold me.”
“Yes.” He took her in his arms, throwing a leg over her thighs, drawing her close, his body molding to hers. His possessive action was so much like John that fresh tears stung the back of her eyes.
“I will love you, Sammi, make you forget, at least for a time. I am san-Duran and Ronsevaal, I can give you that.” He kissed her gently.
“Excellent,” the starlord said. “In the dreamscape, you have liberty to take me where you wish, provided convergence is at the end.”
“I don’t understand.” She glanced at Hari for explanation.
“These are dream-weaver caps. They’ll take images from our minds, weave them into an experience that is beyond a dream, but less than reality. You’ve heard of dream-weavers, surely?”
“Yes… Oh…” Sam felt the cap pulse against her head and then a lethargy crept through her body. She was suspended between two worlds—sleep and waking. Reality was like a veil, and it parted. Behind it was the dreamscape—neither reality, nor unreality. Just dreams.
And perhaps nightmares.
Sam struggled against the images until she felt Hari’s soothing mind-touch.
Nothing to hurt you, kitten, just dreams. I’ll be with you.
The Chizan palace loomed up before her. The image wavered and it became a fortress with forbidding dark towers and a mote around the hill in place of the open terraces and gardens. Her dream-body plummeted down, past sentries and into the citadel.
Her perspective twisted as she was yanked forward. Reality and dreams became one. She was no longer a spectator, but a participant.
She was lying naked on a four poster bed standing in the center of a large grey stone room. Her wrists and ankles were tied to the posts, exposing her completely. Vulnerable.
A man stood at the side of the bed. Harimal. But not her Hari. This one was dressed in the chain mail and leather of a warrior and at
his side, a curved sword. His hair was tightly braided and held away by a gold queue. He gazed upon her.
Sam tested her restraints, the silk chafing. Silk cords—as John had once tied her—the memory had been dredged up for this dream-scene.
“You may struggle all you wish, damiselle,” the warrior said. “But no doubt as to the victor.”
“Harimal?”
The vision wavered and she saw him for a moment, as her Hari. Then the image reverted to the warrior, with eyes the color of flint. Hari’s eyes were sapphire, full of light and laughter—or they had been before he was captured.
Sam realized it was the starlord adding his—its—own personal touch to the dream, altering Harimal. To make him a stranger, to heighten her fear. Her vulnerability. The feegling pervert.
She breathed in deeply, to calm. This was only a dream. Whatever happened, it was Harimal who touched her. No other.
The warrior unfastened the belt around his waist and dropped it and the sword onto the chair beside the bed. He undressed slowly, his gaze never leaving hers.
“Harimal!”
“I am Master—daman-san—to you. Is this understood?”
“I don’t like this dream.”
His smile was chilling. He edged closer, settling a knee on the fur coverlet. He crawled to her, resting on his heels between her open legs.
“Now!” the starlord ordered. “Let her scream. I enjoy screams.”
The warrior-image wavered. Sam saw her Hari return. His eyes were anguish-violet, but lurking deeper, a growing passion.
“Let me love her in my own way,” Harimal whispered. “It will make the pleasure more intense for you, starlord. I will not rape her. Fry my brain, but I will not.”
“Then make my concession worth it, felinus.”
Hari knelt between her thighs, edging forward. “Sam, remember it’s me, no matter what image you see. Close your eyes. See only me. Feel only me.” His phallus touched her, parting her folds, finding her nub. He rubbed gently.
Tears slid between her clenched lids.
Then Harimal began to sing. The felinus song of love as he had sung for her that first night at the Rendezvous Bar. In response, her bones melted, her fear receded, her senses unfurled. Desire swept through her veins, igniting, making her forget everything. Everything, but the song and the love that each word represented.
“Harimal…”
“That is my name, kitten-sister.”
“My name is Sharille. It means…”
“Garden.”
Sam felt the warmth of his smile through her body, lifting the cloud in her heart and mind.
“Remove the cords,” Sam asked.
“No,” the starlord’s voice cut through the dream. “For this time she will know mastery.”
“I will love her as I wish,” Hari said. “Not at my mercy. Not ever.”
“I grant concessions, felinus, but on my own terms. Do not demand anything of me. Ever! Understand once and for all!”
With her mind linked with Hari’s, Sam felt a surging fire pierce his every nerve ending. This was what it was like, the starlord’s punishment? Hari tried to shield her from the worst of it, but even so it was bad. Really bad. She bit her lip, to stifle her cry, to deny the starlord his pleasure from her pain.
“Stop it, please,” she sobbed.
The lizard-cat face appeared in her mind, entwining in her consciousness like a snake.
“Human-mine, you call me master.”
“Go to hell.”
At her defiance, Hari mind-screamed as the punishment increased.
“Yes. Yes. Stop it. Don’t hurt him, please…master,” she said between gritted teeth.
For a moment longer the agony tore through Harimal before he was released. Sam lay clutching him on the cot, the dream left behind as agony sliced through them.
“I sense your defiance, even now. How tedious,” the starlord said, eyes glittering. “Then an added incentive for you both to behave. If the woman defies me, the felinus suffers. If the felinus defies me, the woman suffers, worse than anything you have experienced, kitty-cat. As you both suffer, so will the others.”
Harimal and Sam exchanged glances.
“You call me a collector,” the starlord said. “So I am. In rooms beyond this, a hundred others exist to serve my needs. Not as adequately as you, my pets, but enough for a simple transfer. If you displease me, punishment will be experienced by all.”
“You’re insane,” Sam whispered.
The starlord waved a dismissive talon. “Insanity is just a state of mind.” He laughed, revealing two rows of pointed teeth. “So we are agreed, obey me and survive. Allow the others to survive. Yes? Nothing to say? Excellent. Now, resume the dream. Image strongly. Goooooood…”
The dreamscape reverted to the bedchamber in the citadel.
“It is good, damiselle,” warrior-Hari said, “that you recognize me. I am your master. In bed and out of it.”
His steely gaze held hers.
The image altered and Sam saw Hari, his stunning sapphire eyes alight.
“It’s me. No other, kitten. Remember.”
The warrior returned and he bent over her, lowering himself. Again, she felt his probing, parting her folds. Back and forth he rubbed, teased. He kissed her, laps of his tongue over her lips. Not a lover’s kiss, a master’s kiss, to prove he could do what he wished.
Furious, Sam tugged at the restraints, to no avail.
He nestled into her, and sang. She moaned.
“Harimal…”
He entered her between songs and spread her wide with his felinus body. The ridges teased, almost unbearably. He calmed, allowing her to grow used to him. So much like John, so not. He was Harimal.
He growled low in his throat and lifted from her and plunged down, claiming. Triumphant.
His hands beneath her buttocks raised her, guiding her body to meet his thrusts. A little to the left. Devastation. A little to the right. Annihilation. To the center…ecstasy.
He sang again, bringing her to a higher level. How she wanted to hold him, wrap her legs around him, but the cords at her ankles and wrists remained.
Hari’s lips traced over her face, gentle laps and licks and playful bites at her lobe. She shivered at the first climax-ripple inside her. Her own. His.
Harimal paused mid-stroke and gazed down at her, smiling. Then, his face blurred and he became the warrior. She hated him.
“Ah, damiselle! This is your master who touches you, consumes you.”
The dreamscape rippled around her, and she felt the faint vibration of the starlord, its triumph.
Sam twisted away from the warrior. “No. I’m not your property. I’m not your damiselle. I’m Sharille-Samantha. I exist for Kuno—only for John-Kuno. Don’t feegling touch me!”
“Forgive!” Harimal pulled away from her.
“You have not brought me convergence!” the starlord screamed, tearing the dream apart. “For that you both suffer.”
The pain burned into Hari, igniting every nerve ending. He tore off his dreamer’s cap and flung himself across the room, crashing against the wall.
Sam removed her dreamer’s cap and raced to where he lay, like a fetus, curled against the agony slicing through him.
“Go to hell, you bloody pervert,” Sam screamed to the starlord. “You want me to take you to convergence, then leave Hari alone. Leave us alone. We can give you convergence, but stop intruding.” She cradled Hari against her. He wept. She soothed him, her lips on his temple, her hands stroking through his hair. “Stop hurting him and I’ll give you convergence and more!”
The starlord hissed. “There is nothing more than convergence.”
“You think so?”
“Then, prove it, human.”
“Stop hurting Hari. Please.” She paused, wanting to bite her tongue, so she couldn’t say the word. But she had to. “Master. Please.”
“I see the entertainment is at an end. For a first time it was acceptable.
But I expect improvement each time we dream-share.” The starlord drove the chair from the room, the door sealing shut behind him. Harimal’s eyelids fluttered and opened. His smile froze in his eyes, on his lips.
“Ah, Sam.”
“Who else?”
“I hurt you.”
“Not you, sweetheart. The monster.”
Hari touched her knee, his fingers finding a pressure point, relaxing, calming her. “Let me love you, Shari-mine. Let me show you that I never hurt.”
“I know.” She bent down and kissed him. His fingers spread across her nape, holding her. “Come back to the bed, Hari.”
“Only if I may love you as a felinus.”
She helped him to stand and arm in arm they returned to the bed. As Sam went to lie down, he held her wrist.
“No, kitten. Felinus men don’t like taking their women when they’re on their backs. It’s a human position. Intended to dominate.”
“John does…did.”
Hari smiled. “He thought it would be too alien for you not to have that familiarity, at least at first. In time he would never do it that way, unless you begged. How often did he lie above you? Rarely? Mm. We prefer face to face, sitting as equals. There is no longer damiselle or daman-san in the felinus world.” He traced a finger over her lips.
“But it once existed?” Hari avoided her gaze. She took his chin and made him face her. “Tell me.”
“On Chizan, centuries ago, there was once a warrior elite and fortresses dotted the valleys and plains. We plundered and fought our neighbors. Women were nothing more than booty. Such a regime existed for perhaps one hundred years.”
“I never knew.”
“No outsider does. It is our shame.”
“But why did this occur? How? It seems against cat nature.”
“It is, Samantha. We do not dominate others. We love women, in all their infinite diversity. To hurt a woman is unthinkable to felinus.” He shrugged. “As to why and how it occurred, this secret is guarded by the king. When the time is right, he will tell his successor. I have my suspicions. But it is in the past. To call a woman damiselle is the greatest insult. To call a man a master—the daman-san—is the greatest offense you can offer a felinus.”
“And why the starlord orchestrated that dream?”
StarlightComplete Page 25